How often do you play as video game characters of the opposite gender?

[Nilisa]

Also essentially any RPG or MMORPG. Everquest/EQII, FFXI, WoW, Neverwinter Nights, Oblivion, Dragon Age, and so on and so forth.

Pretty much, kyril.

[Evelyn]

I played female characters for the longest time until one of my irl friends told me that was perverted of me. Then i stopped for a while. Then i switched to mudding ((no graphics, lines of text, kinda odd)) and used a male character and everyone would insist on calling me a she because of the way i talked/typed? I still don't get it, but it made me happy anyways. After I found out what transsexual meant, i gradually shifted back into female characters. I change games absurdly often though, and i haven't really played for like a year or so.

[Laruza]

For some strange reason in MMO's, combat characters are usually male, and my crafting characters are usually female, though I do have exceptions this is usually the case, and I am not sure why.

Mainly in combat scenarios you have to group with other players and when I am playing a female character there is a chance that you may get hit on, which I guess isn't such a big deal for me anymore since I have developed my confidence in general. Despite this everyone in the community knows I'm a girl so they will call me she and her even though I'm playing a male character, which I don't really care since I have a habit of referring to my characters in 3rd person, but usually only when I play male characters.

For example, when I need an enhancement (on a male character) I'll say can you buff my char please? If I am playing a female I'll say can you buff me please? It's odd but I don't consciously do it.

[Pinkfluff]

I always plays as my own gender. I don't know why I wouldn't, especially when I get more control over appearance online than in the physical world. Yeah sometimes you get people who get funny if you say you really are female, or they guess or are told. Sometimes you get hit on, sometimes they insist you get on TS or want to see a picture, but in my experience they get over that fast. One time I was the only female in a 200 member EVE corp, and at first I got all that but they came to respect me as one of them when they saw that I was as good as anyone else and better than many.

[Caldwell]

I play as whichever I like more, depending on the game. It often doesn't matter in single player games since I'll just obscure their face anyway. In multiplayer games, always male.

[xxUltraModLadyxx]

I always perfer playing female characters, especially when she's in a role or profession that's dominated by men, but in some games like WoW, Dragon Age, Mass Effect or Saints Row, most of the characters have an equal ratio of gender, which, is less interesting. I still perfer female charaters, but I'm not against playing male ones as well. In Dragon Age: Origins, exactly half my characters were female, and half were male. Same with Mass Effect 2, although in Mass Effect 1, which I haven't played in years, I played 2 male characters and 1 female character. But in Saints Row 2, I've 4 characters, one is from my first playthrough, one is my main one, one I stopped playing halfway through, and 1 is for online multiplayer. All are female except for that one I didn't finish. On WoW, if I still played, I think atleast some of my characters would be male, but before I began questioning my gender, the gender ratio of my toons was half. My characters in Fable 3 are also have the same ratio, a good guy, an evil girl, an evil guy, and a good girl.

I read that some people see their character as a virtual personification of themselves, and have issues playing a character of the opposite sex, while others don't make that connection and are comfortable playing characters of both sexes.

I'm just wondering if anyone is comfortable playing a character that isn't the gender they identify with, especially in an MMO or other online multiplayers where you present your character to other people, and they naturally see you in that gender. I read the WoW boards before and some people were very uptight about it, while others didn't mind, and others didn't mind but they had a problem with doing it themselves. But what about transsexuals? In the real world we go through a lot of trouble to present ourselves in the gender that's different than the one that society expects us to, but what about the virtual world?

i've always felt like it was just right for me to play video games as the female character. one game i really like, tomb raider. it's an action filled adventure game. she's a strong, independent, brave, and resourceful woman. lots of traits that are against the stereotypical female.

[Yakshini]

When playing a game like WoW, where men commonly play female characters, I'm okay with sometimes playing a female. But playing a game like Halo or Fallout where people generally play as their own gender, I play men.
It became evident to me that people expect me to play female characters, so I no longer play them.

[RachelH]

Really I  have never played my natural gender in any game. If I have ANY opprtunity to play the correct gendered character for me, I will always play female, and she will always kick arse, like females should! x

[SnailPace]

Right now I have three female characters and two male characters.  On Harvest Moon I only chose a female so that I would be able to marry a man, in my LARP I play a female because I wasn't out when I started the campaign and the same for one of my D&D games.  Since coming out I make male characters but I still play my old female characters.  It depends on the game.

[twistedpixie]

For the past couple of years, I usually always play a female character when given the choice, before that I only occasionally made a female character. In some games there are differences in how npcs treat you based on gender and I'll sometimes make a male character to see that. Otherwise, now that I've accepted myself as a female entity I want my characters to reflect that. Even my Xbox live avatar is female. Although she does look a little androgynous.

[N.Chaos]

Constantly. Admittedly, I only play two or three games (Most of them annoy the hell out of me, thanks to living with two sometimes rabid gamers) but the ones I do play on any kind of regular basis (Sims, Fallout 3, Left4Dead) I will always, always play a male character. Usually, if it's a customizable game, I go so far as to make a "mini me" basically. I've got a sim on the new Sims3 my girlfriend bought for me that looks eerily accurate if I'd been born biomale. It makes me kind of sad but watching him run around doing ->-bleeped-<- I'd do also makes me oddly happy.
As for Left4Dead, I just always play Bill. Because Bill is a goddamn badass.

[Nilisa]

Fav game is The Witcher, Geralt is pretty awesome, probably wouldnt be as good if you could design your own char on that as itll change the atmosphere too much.

Without wanting to digress from the topic too much; The Witcher would not work if you could make your own character. It - Like the books, movie and TV series - is about Geralt, and it's his story. Changing from that would change everything, especially when one considers that before The Witcher, Geralt was not really known to most (If not all) of the English-speaking world.

[Megan Joanne]

Well, back in my teens, when first introduced to the NES, being a boy in body, though somehow a confused girl in mind though not yet understanding why, I always enjoyed picking and using female characters, didn't know why at the time, but do now when I reflect back on those fond memories (all my gaming memories are good ones ) I know that it was because subconciously I was playing the role that I felt closer to in gender. It didn't really matter than a character was male or female really, afterall if a game is good its fun regardless, but if given a choice of multiple characters to chose from, I never hesitated to chose to play as the female character first, and usually for the most part whenever I replayed that game (such as Super Mario Bros 2), and if the only character in the game was female (as in the case of Metroid or The Guardian Legend) I was in my comfort zone completely, I wasn't the hero of the story this time, or in some cases when I pretended I was the princess or other damsel in distress that the hero had to rescue (if he succeeded then I was saved, if not then the bad guys had their ways with me), I got to be the girl, and one that could kick butt at that too.

In Super Mario Bros 2, who'd I use, the Princess, not just a damsel in distress anymore (my brother, as with most other boys tended to always pick any of the other three, only going for the Princess once they realized her coolness with her awesome hovering capabilities), and actually when Super Mario Bros 3 came out, I was for a time very upset with the change of gameplay back to the original formula and not being able to use the Princess anymore, that they reduced her to captive again (of coarse many years later I learn that SMB2 wasn't really a Mario game to begin with, but that's something else altogether). I remember how giddy I was when my suspicions of Samus in Metroid being female (based on her artwork), and not a guy or robot like my brother thought, were correct when it was revealed at the end of the game, I was so psyched, no guy could stand a chance against this girl, I loved it! The Guardian Legend, not only attracted me to buy it because it looked like a cool game, but also because again, usable female character, heroine of the story, and probably one of the most powerful NES characters at that. Castlevania III, for a while there Syfa was my favorite partner to take along (though once I got over being her just because she's a girl, Grant proved to be more fun to use). Obviously first fighter choice in Street Fighter II, Chun Li, used her for the longest time before trying out any of the male fighters (though Ken is my favorite). I guess that once I got over the whole I wanna be the girl character thing for whatever game it be that I was playing, if there were other choices I tended to move on to those that were to most comfortable to use gameplay wise, regardless of their gender.

I suppose I'm not as crazy about this kind of thing as I was when I was going through my gender identity crisis in my earlier years, my thing is now, I know who I am, also, I don't go overboard in using the imagination that I had during my teens to act out or become the character in the game, I just play 'em now, mostly just to beat them, or rebeat them better, I guess my gaming fun is more competitive now that I don't take the time to immerse myself within their worlds and characters, also, I think once I got on hormones and started feeling more feminine I don't think I needed to have to relate to that side of me through video game characters anymore.

[Lily]

I also used to choose the princess in SMB2. That was always my favorite of the series.

I've been RPing in MMOs since 2003 and I've always chosen a female character to represent myself. It's always felt right to me. I tend to choose female in single player games as well when given the choice.

[Centcomm01]

ive always used female avatars and charcters as long as i can remember , it always felt more fun and right .. i know silly.

[Dani0621]

This reminds me of a scene from "the guild" where the protagonists question an effeminate male player (who has the username 'Valkyrie') about their character choices...

"You have two female characters?"
"yes. I like girls. I like looking at them while i play.  Is there something wrong with that?"

Ive always gravitated to female players, and this excuse works wonderfully. =)  maybe less so when i got a female character in Halo though...since all you see is bulky space armor

[Mahsa Tezani]

I always play as male characters. But I haven't played vid games in years.

[Crypt]

Usually play as a male character but they usually end up being very slim  as I don't really like the musclebound gorilla look
Though I have found myself playing some female characters from time to time for fun lol

[Mahsa Tezani]

i've always felt like it was just right for me to play video games as the female character. one game i really like, tomb raider. it's an action filled adventure game. she's a strong, independent, brave, and resourceful woman. lots of traits that are against the stereotypical female.

Like Samus Aran? LOL

[Taka]

how often... i don't play video games all that often, but when i do it's usually a male character. except for when i wanna play a female character. i've a female assassin and priest in rappelz, they're both really cute. haven't played any video games for far too long though, my parents seems to think it's not fitting for their oldest daughter to waste time on it, and since i can't stand being bothered by anyone i stopped playing just so they would shut up about it